Word.ws English Dictionary

poddy

poddy adjective: of or pertaining to a pod or pods.

poddy: of or pertaining to a pod or pods
Image: Figaro, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Adjective

poddy (comparative poddier, superlative poddiest)

  1. (not comparable) Of or pertaining to a pod or pods.
    • […] the second cutting each season was allowed to become poddy, i.e., to set seed pods.1944, New Mexico State University Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletin of the Agricultural Experiment Station, New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, Issues 318-329, page 88
  2. Fat, corpulent.
  3. (Australia, not comparable) Fed by hand.
    • One of my half-starved poddy calves was very ill, and I went out to doctor it previous to bathing and tidying myself for my finishing household duties.1901, Miles Franklin, “The 3rd of December 1898”, in My Brilliant Career, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, page 292
    • Constant handling will cause mis-mothering, leading to deaths and a number of poddy lambs. Poddy lambs are slow to grow and often fail to reach marketable weight under eight months of age.1964, New South Wales Department of Agriculture, The Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales, Volume 74, page 646

Noun

poddy (plural poddies)

  1. (Australia) An unbranded calf.
  2. (Australia) A hand-fed calf or lamb (a young animal needing milk or milk-substitute).
    • I did not turn to ascertain who it might be, but trusted it was no one of importance, as the poddy and I presented rather a grotesque appearance.1901, Miles Franklin, My Brilliant Career, page 207
    • When the milkin′ music′s ended, and the big cans stacked away, / An′ the poddies have done drinkin′, an′ the neddies chew their hay1904, Bush Courtin′: Australian Ballads & Short Stories, Penguin, published 2003, page 268
  3. (Australia, Victoria) An immature mullet.

Verb

poddy (third-person singular simple present poddies, present participle poddying, simple past and past participle poddied)

  1. (Australia) To hand-feed (a young animal).
    • ‘Ell ov a trouble t′ poddy, miss, them lambs, but Queeby used t′ poddy any Gord′s quantity’ remarked Nungi.1907, Barbara Baynton, Human Toll, 2007, Echo Library, page 110

Forms of poddy

Adjective
comparativepoddier
superlativepoddiest
Noun
pluralpoddies
Verb
third-person singular presentpoddies
present participlepoddying
past participlepoddied
pastpoddied

Origin of poddy

From pod + -y.

Words formed from poddy

  • poddy-dodger

Questions about poddy

What does poddy mean?
Poddy means of or pertaining to a pod or pods.
What part of speech is poddy?
Poddy can be an adjective, a noun or a verb.

Words near poddy in the dictionary

  1. poddiest
  2. podding
  3. poddinger
  4. poddingers
  5. poddish
  6. poddy
  7. Poddębice
  8. pode
  9. podecia
  10. podecium
  11. podeena

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: poddy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-poddy.ogg.

Cite this entry: “poddy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/poddy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.